


Only The Best Bad Habits

by badskeletonpuns



Series: Best Bad Habits-verse [1]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Generation One
Genre: (eventually) - Freeform, Affection, But Make It Stupid, Complicated Relationships, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Grooming, M/M, Mutual Pining, Not Like A Slow Burn So Much As A Medium-Rare Burn, OT4, Other, Seeker Trines, idiots to lovers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-07
Updated: 2020-08-15
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:20:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25762003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badskeletonpuns/pseuds/badskeletonpuns
Summary: Megatron had never put too much thought into Why Starscream Was The Way He Was. Part of it, yes, was that Starscream was a loud mech with loud opinions. It turned out another part of it was that he wasn't getting necessary trine affection time, and when he began getting it again, he started to draw back from the combative interactions he used to have with Megatron.Now Megatron would never admit it, but he missed bantering with Starscream. However, he also wasn't stupid or unnecessarily cruel, so he didn't want to mess up the smoother relationship the seeker regained with his trine.... He was not going to try and seduce all three seekers. That would be foolhardy.(They were probably going to seduce him.)
Relationships: Megatron/Skywarp/Starscream/Thundercracker (Transformers), Megatron/Starscream, Skywarp/Starscream/Thundercracker (Transformers)
Series: Best Bad Habits-verse [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1983005
Comments: 23
Kudos: 93





	1. bulletproof loneliness

**Author's Note:**

> this was supposed to be like, a 2-3 oneshot max and just megastar. given that it's now megatron/elite trine and the first chapter is 5k, i think it may have gotten out of hand? sorry not sorry

What passed for morning onboard the Nemesis rose far faster than the earth’s pitiful dawn. Lights snapped on and whatever unlucky bots had the early shift rolled out of their berths along with a chorus of groaning, shifting metal. 

Megatron was already online. Of course even he had to recharge sometimes, but it wouldn’t do to become predictable in his online/offline patterns. One never knew when someone (Starscream) would take advantage of any opportunity to take over the Decepticons. 

Speaking of his conniving SIC, the seeker had the dubious honor of the orn’s first patrol. Megatron was fully expecting Starscream to burst into the bridge breems late, demanding the whole ship be run according to his own schedule. 

So it was with some (well-hidden) confusion Megatron watched Starscream slip into the room  _ on time _ and, even more shocking, almost quietly. It didn’t look as though he’d foregone any of his usual gratuitous preening either—not that Megatron was looking at the play of light across the red and white metal of Starscream’s wings. 

“Starscream!” he demanded, summoning the seeker to his throne. 

Starscream strutted up to the front of the bridge, thruster-heels clicking like the trigger of a gun. “You called?” 

Megatron, having fully expected to be either ignored or yelled at, found himself in the unenviable position of having been surprised by Starscream twice in a row. 

“Why aren’t you on patrol already?” 

Starscream cocked his head to one side, red optics bright with what a more foolish mech may have mistaken for innocence. “I was under the impression all seekers were to check in with their commanding officer before patrolling, sir.” 

“You are their commanding officer,” Megatron growled. 

“And I answer to  _ you, _ Lord Megatron.” Starscream leaned in, almost trilling over his vowels. “So here I am, checking in. Patrol routes as normal, succinct reports with more details regarding Autobot expansions or possible power sources as required?” Rather than following up with a pointed comment about it being the same every deca-orn and how if  _ he _ was leader of the Decepticons there would at least be  _ variety, _ Starscream just waited for Megatron’s reponse. A smirk pulled at his lips, but not enough to put any of his razor-sharp denta on display. 

He had to be plotting something. Best to let him assume Megatron was no more suspicious of his actions than normal.

“Correct.” Megatron was unwilling to break eye contact with Starscream. The seeker appeared to share no such worries, flashing Megatron another smug little grin before pirouetting and transforming midstep, flying off without another word. 

The audio sensors of those in the bridge wouldn’t stop ringing from the boom of his engines for another joor at least. 

Megatron ground his denta together and made a note to schedule a review session for the entire air force on what exactly was allowed within the halls of Nemesis.  _ Flying _ was definitely not on the list, in alt-mode or otherwise. It would serve the hyperactive jets right to have to sit through a refresher on what they called—where they thought Megatron wouldn’t hear about it—the most Primus-forsakenly boring rulebook in the galaxy. 

He commed Soundwave.  _ ::Starscream is up to something. Find out what.::  _

_ ::Received, Lord Megatron.:: _

Perhaps he could have found Soundwave in person to ask, but he didn’t really feel like the quiet judgment from his communications officer over his continued focus on Starscream’s actions. Soundwave wouldn’t ask outright ‘wasn’t Starscream  _ always _ up to something?’, but he would somehow get the feeling of asking it across without needing to make a sound. 

It was something in the tilt of his helm. 

Or the telepathy. 

Regardless, Megatron had better things to do with his time than anticipate the schemes of a single seeker. He had raids to organize, guard schedules to set up, and briefs to attend from the various patrols throughout the orn. And after that, he could easily make himself busy with schemes of his own. 

After all, one did not stay leader of a faction like the Decepticons for long without a fair share of schemes involved. 

Which is to say that there were plenty of things for Megatron to do. He was not bored with Starscream off on patrol. The very thought was patently ridiculous. 

Perhaps he would inspect the security of the landing bay, though. It had nothing to do with Starscream’s return being scheduled at any moment. The leaks in this part of the Nemesis were atrocious when the ship was at full depth. 

The sound of jet engines roared, loud even at a distance. 

Megatron stood a little taller on instinct. As long as he was already here, it wouldn’t be too much trouble to remind Starscream who was really in charge. Surely the seeker wouldn’t be able to resist Megatron’s presence and would allow himself to be baited into an argument that, of course, Megatron would win. 

Starscream landed in alt-mode, transforming with practiced ease. 

“Megatron,” he greeted—not screeching in offense or demanding answers, simply a neutral, respectful greeting. “All was as expected on patrol. No Autobot interference or significant energy deposits on this route.” 

And then he  _ left.  _

Even with Starscream’s distinctive paint job, Megatron had a hard time believing it was really him who had returned. Perhaps he and Skywarp had switched places to confuse and distract Megatron, and then while his guard was down, the  _ real _ Starscream would stab him in the back? 

He sent a query about such a scheme to Soundwave. A distinctly judgemental silence was the only response. 

Nevertheless. Duties to perform. Treachery to root out. Autobots to destroy. He was a busy mech, and the infuriating attentions of his SIC were entirely unnecessary to fill his passing joors. 

* * *

Megatron, Lord of the Decepticons, Exarch of the Ore-blooded Revolutionaries and First Spark of the Seething Moon, was bored. 

He hadn’t been this bored since Starscream’s  _ last  _ ill thought out scheme had horribly malfunctioned and put Starscream himself in the medbay for a quartex. 

Putting aside the betrayal of Soundwave’s earlier lack of response, Megatron ventured to the Nemesis’s communications control room. The door slid open for him before he had to input the access code, revealing Soundwave gazing across several security monitors. Ravage lay curled at the base of the computer, falling in and out of recharge against its warmth. 

“Soundwave. Report.” 

“Uncertain if Megatron wishes daily report or Starscream report.” 

Megatron ex-vented more harshly than perhaps necessary. “The Starscream report,” he admitted through the whirr of his vents. “What is the little traitor up to?” 

“Starscream is located in his lab.” 

“I knew it!” Megatron hissed. “Doubtless constructing his next device to topple me.” He slammed his fist into the wall next to him. “Well, he won’t have the chance to complete—”

“Current activity: preening with Skywarp and Thundercracker.” 

_ “—this _ pitted device—what do you mean?” 

This was the third time this orn Starscream had shocked Megatron, and it was not any more pleasant than the first two times. Less so now that it was beginning to seem like he wasn’t even  _ trying _ to outwit his commander. 

“Seekers naturally engage in preening as a method of bonding with their trines and calming during times of stress,” Soundwave droned.

“I have never once heard nor seen Starscream engage in preening during the four million cycles we’ve been on this planet,” Megatron insisted. “This is probably part of another one of his plans.” 

There was that judgmental silence again. For something that didn’t have a sound, Megatron was getting tired of hearing it. 

Then Soundwave’s optics flickered—a thoughtful movement, nearly unnoticeable had Megatron not known his subordinate as well as he did. “Considering Starscream’s possible lack of preening explains much about his actions and,” Soundwave hummed, “general lack of reliable performance of duties.” He continued when Megatron did not offer any further insights. “Suggestion: continue to allow Starscream regular bonding time with Skywarp and Thundercracker. Projected efficiency rates for the next deca-orn: significantly higher than average with Starscream’s new attitude.” 

Not a small part of Megatron wanted to throw Soundwave’s advice to the wind and demand Starscream desist in any activities not directly approved by Megatron at least a quartex in advance. Still. He had not (almost) won the war so many times because he’d ignored Soundwave’s advice. “I suppose that could be an acceptable course of action,” he capitulated. “Let me at least see for myself this alleged positive effect.” 

Soundwave obediently stepped to one side, allowing Megatron to view the banks of security monitors. As described, Starscream was in his lab. 

The seeker sat on one of the tables—well, partially on the table. He was mostly on Skywarp. Starscream looked like he had, for lack of a better word, melted. The seeker lay slumped across Skywarp’s shoulders and chassis, optics dim with relaxation. Thundercracker sat on his other side, running polish-slick fingers over Starscream’s wings. He paid special attention to the ailerons, lifting the flaps carefully to ensure the polish soaked into the underside and the hinges. 

Skywarp held one of Starscream’s servos in his, massaging the delicate phalangeal hydraulics. 

Both seekers were looking at their trinemate like he wasn’t a traitorous nuisance and hadn’t been arguing with them on a continual basis for millions of cycles. They looked at him like—like he was valuable on an intrinsic level. Like he was someone  _ worth _ looking at just for the sake of looking, rather than sizing up his military usefulness or attempting to guess at his latest scheme. 

Megatron had every right to know what his subordinates were up to at all times in the base, yet he couldn’t shake the feeling he was intruding on something private. 

“I’m—” he rebooted his vocalizer over a quick burst of static. “I am satisfied with your appraisal of the situation, Soundwave. Notify me should it become obvious Starscream is planning something more terrible than usual.”

“Understood.” 

Megatron was not rushing to his own quarters to self-serve to the idea of Starscream being so pliant, so unthinkably  _ happy _ under Megatron’s servos. And if he was, it was simply the novelty of the shrieking, prideful seeker reduced to a simpering parody of himself that had caught Megatron’s optics. 

He hadn’t seen Starscream so happy, so  _ relaxed _ in cycles. The glee of destruction and mayhem was one thing, the smug pride in his own schemes another. Megatron had seen entirely more than was necessary of both of those. 

The way he’d smiled as Thundercracker and Skywarp had touched him… 

It reminded Megatron of the first few times he’d spoken to the seeker. The way Starscream used to look at Megatron like he  _ trusted _ him to lead them into war and out the other side again. Megatron had chosen him as second in command for a reason, after all. 

Megatron squeezed his servos into fists tight enough to make the metal groan. Vehicons passing him in the corridor shied off to one side, recognizing the signs of their lord’s rage.

Of course they had always argued, but it hadn’t used to be so bitter. At some point in the eons of war, their energetic debates had stopped being exercises in seeing one another’s point of view and started being nothing more than knock-down drag-out fights. 

Megatron recognized the processor loop beginning in his circuits, guilt circling into anger and bypassing logic in cascading lines of code. The repetition heated his core components, and he had already begun venting hard without realizing it. 

He slammed into his quarters, locking the door behind him. It wouldn’t keep out anyone particularly determined to invade his privacy, but it would at least give him enough time to aim his fusion cannon at their head. 

The idea of getting himself off to thoughts of Starscream so uncharacteristically docile had lost its shine somewhat. Megatron couldn’t shake a memory of Starscream and himself in one of their first battles together—fighting in concert, trusting Starscream to wield Megatron in his gun form, whether the seeker was in alt or root mode. Starscream had been fierce, deadly, and magnetizing, and Megatron had been drawn to him like a nanite to an energon well. 

This in contrast with their last battle, wherein Megatron had come dangerously close to shooting Starscream just to shut him up for five kliks. 

Spiralling guilt such as this was useless. Anger, passion—those were feelings that could get a bot somewhere. This was nothing but code tangling itself to a standstill, and Megatron could not allow it to come to that. He had far more important plans to which he wanted to devote his processing power than these old wounds, long scarred over. 

And yet that memory kept playing, like an old holovid glitched into a loop. His spark burned hot; the armor on his chest ached with it. 

Megatron shunted the entire knot of emotional subroutines into background threads and dismissed the memories back into storage. Perhaps the whole mess would work itself apart given some time running on its own. 

It wasn’t as if it was enough to keep him from recharge in his rare off joors. 

* * *

Megatron jolted into wakefulness and sat up straight in his berth, fusion cannon powering online before his optics even flickered on. 

His wiring and cables were taut all the way down to his protoform, slowing his movements and making his armor shriek in protest every time he moved. 

Mining units like he had once been were not designed to dream. But when Megatron turned his optics off manually in an attempt to fall back into recharge, memories he had dropped into long-term storage cycles ago flickered into full-color playback. 

He was on Cybertron, back when they had still thought the war was something they could win, rather than something they had to make sure the Autobots lost. Starscream and his trine flew in tight formation across the violet sky as Megatron watched.

There hadn’t been a battle in a deca-orn, and the most recent one had been a victory. Thundercracker, Skywarp, and Starscream were flying for the sheer joy of it. Watching them spin over and under each other, a dance never choreographed by any Iaconite grounder, had been one of those things Megatron used to keep close to spark. That freedom, that boundless indulgence in something so simple—every bot deserved that, regardless of intended function. 

The scene shifted to one much later in the war, somewhere deep in contested space. The Nemesis had still been flight-worthy then, the jewel of the Decepticon fleet. Megatron was leading a shipwide meeting from the bridge, just as the three seekers were returning from a scouting patrol. 

They were bantering with each other over their trine bond, silent but obvious in the way they grinned and shoved at each other. Starscream scoffed at something Megatron couldn’t hear and pulled in front of his trinemates, hiking his wings up to block their teasing. 

Skywarp had reached up and ran his servo along the top edge of Starscream’s wing, enticing him back towards Skywarp and Thundercracker. “Come on, Star,” he wheedled aloud, thumbing over the winglet at the tip of Starscream’s wing. “You know we’re just playing.” 

Starscream flicked his wing, knocking Skywarp’s servo off of him. But the little smirk working its way onto his face said that he didn’t mind too much. 

They’d touched each other so casually back then. It was as though affection came to the seekers as easily as their own code. 

The scene changed as the Nemesis rusted away around Megatron, and the dripping echoes of a hundred leaks fought to be heard over the groan of metal pinned under thousands of tons of water. This memory was far too recent. 

Megatron had thought he would drop in on the training exercises of his air force. 

Of course, he’d stepped into a hangar bay at the moment Thundercracker threw his servos to his face and cried out in anger. He had let a little too much of his frustration leak into the sound, and the sonic reverberations echoed into the spark chambers of every mech around him. 

Starscream and Skywarp, hovering in their alt modes, singed in a way that regular training exercises should  _ not _ have caused, both transformed and dropped to the floor. 

They hesitated when they approached him, though, and sneered at each other when they made optic contact. 

Thundercracker saw their expressions and threw his arms into the air. “Would you just stop fighting for  _ two kliks?!”  _ The anger in his systems took itself out on his own voice, making his words barely audible over the thunderclap of a sonic boom. 

Luckily, it was less powerful than when the seeker actively engaged his ability. 

Unluckily, it didn’t need to be that powerful for the over-stressed walls of that particular hangar bay to give up the spark and buckle inwards. 

At the rush of seawater swallowing his armor and pressing in on his protoform, Megatron came online to the rush of his fans and vents trying to expel water that wasn’t real. 

He grimaced. Perhaps this was something he should put a few joors more thought into. He couldn’t afford to lose recharge. Not with the infrequent schedule he allowed himself to have it, anyway. 

And as long as he wasn’t going to recharge, he may as well get started. 

Allowing Starscream to continue this new peace within his trine was a good idea; Soundwave had been right about that. However, that didn’t mean Megatron had to let his second draw away entirely.  More observation of Starscream’s new attitude was required.  Of course Soundwave’s reports would be useful in this regard, but now felt like an appropriate time to get some servos-on knowledge.  The next energon raid should offer just such an opportunity. 

* * *

It wasn’t a difficult plan. 

A few of Megatron’s less recognizable ground troops would lead the refinery’s guards on a wild shriekbat chase to rid them of their main defense, while two or three trines of seekers would swoop in, fill the cubes they’d loaded their subspaces with to the brim with the crude oil, jet fuel, kerosene, whatever the humans had dug up from this miserable planet that could be compressed into energon. The entire plot should take less than an orn. 

The last time that they’d tried a hit-and-run of this nature, the seeker trines involved had gotten  _ held up _ somehow within the human’s base. 

Apparently someone, naming no commanding officers, had been viciously attacked by his own troops. (Soundwave had gotten ahold of the Conehead blamed for the attack and viewed their memory of the sequence of events. Thrust had sprayed Starscream with some of the waste byproduct of the refined oil.)

Then the Autobots had arrived. 

That was why this time, Megatron and several heavier warframes were waiting within short comms range. If need be, they were well prepared to level the entire facility and ensure there was nothing there for the Autobots to defend at all. Or they could pick off humans attempting to flee and contact said Autobots. Megatron really wasn’t picky about the method. 

The plan seemed to be proceeding exactly as it had been written, which set off several warning systems in his processor. 

Humans were laughably easy to distract. Something about twenty-ton robots that could turn into tanks tended to catch their attention and hold it. So a few soldiers led the artillery of the base on a merry run-around, and right on schedule three trines of Seekers swooped into the base itself. 

The way Starscream shot a hole into the wall moments before he and the rest of his unit would have crashed into it was… optic-catching, to say the least. It was dangerous and flashy and unnecessary, but the skill it must have taken to do the calculations necessary for such a maneuver mid-flight was impressive. 

Not that Megatron would ever say so aloud.

Breems passed before the comms link crackled to life, emitting nothing but a brief burst of static. 

The Combaticons shifted behind him, branches snapping under heavy pedes. “Do you think s’been sort of a long time—” Brawl began, before getting shushed by his gestalt. 

A familiar sharp scent filled the air, like that of a cyber-citron, and static teased at the corners of Megatron’s optics. He turned as quietly as possible until he saw it off to the left of their unit: a shimmer like a half-seen reflection. 

With a soldier who could teleport and who seemed to have no common sense regarding which mechs should never, ever be pranked, Megatron had learned to recognize the telltale signs of teleportation billions of cycles ago. 

Skywarp snapped into existence, startling several of the Combaticons less familiar with his abilities into half-transformations. “Someone open your subspace,” he got out, before unloading at least a quartex’s worth of unrefined energy cubes onto the ground. “Be back in a klik.” 

“This isn’t the plan!” Megatron got out, but Skywarp, the half-chipped fool, was already waving goodbye and warping back into the compound. Insubordinate glitches, him and his trine! There was no doubt Starscream, treacherous as he was, had a servo in this. 

Megatron opened a line of communication back to the Nemesis.  _ ::Soundwave. Has there been any message sent or received from within the humans’ oil refinery?::  _

_ ::Negative. Laserbeak reports last known position of the Autobots still an acceptable distance from Decepticon troops.::  _

_ ::Received.::  _ Megatron shut off the line and glared at the assembled Combaticons. “Well? Get these cubes put away!” 

Skywarp reappeared next to Megatron, flashing a smile and dropping another load of cubes onto the forest floor. “Almost done! Starscream’s got a plan, don’t worry.” 

That was possibly the most worrying thing Megatron had heard all orn. “Skywarp, don’t—” 

It was too late. Skywarp had already vanished. Megatron ground his denta together. 

“Uh, Megatron? Most of us already have some stuff in our subspaces, and there are… more cubes here than we can fit,” Swindle said. 

“I’ve got them,” Megatron snapped, and began sending the cubes into his own pocket of subspace. He took a moment to vent, cycling cool air across heated processors. This was fine. Everything was going to be fine, and Starscream’s plan wouldn’t come crashing down around his pretty wings like all of his other plans always did. 

An explosion rattled the earth, and Megatron was taking off with an energy cube still clenched in one servo. The Combaticons followed, as fast as they could in their root forms. 

One of the Seekers had blown out the roof of the refinery’s main building, and all three trines that had been sent in were flying out, seemingly none the worse for wear. They banked and swooped over towards Megatron and the Combaticons, coming to hover in front of them. 

“How nice to see you, Commander,” Starscream cooed. He transformed midair and smirked at Megatron. “I know you had a plan, but I just want you to know that my seekers and I are all carrying the maximum amount of energon we can, in addition to the supplies Skywarp handed off to your faction. That must be at least twice the energy gain you’d hoped for.” 

It was more like three times, actually, but like Pit Megatron was going to admit that. “The energy you’ve gained for our cause today is valuable, but you should have informed myself or Soundwave before changing the plan like this. Don’t test my patience again.” 

Starscream’s engine kicked into a higher gear with a shriek, though his expression didn’t change. “Good to know I’m appreciated,” he spat out, before flipping back into jet form and taking off for the Nemesis. The seeker trines fell into formation after him, with none of the post-battle bickering Megatron was used to shouting over. 

“So are we… going?” ventured one of the Combaticons. Megatron didn’t bother answering before he followed the seekers’ contrails toward their home base. 

So perhaps Soundwave had been correct that Starscream would be more efficient. He was still a mutinous brat. 

Megatron was horrified to realize that was reassuring. 

By the time Megatron and the rest of his troops returned to the Nemesis, the seekers had dropped off their energized cargo and dispersed into the ship’s corridors and barracks. 

Perhaps he should check in on his errant seekers. 

(Perhaps he should stop attempting to fool his own programming and admit he wanted to talk to Starscream.) 

He shook off the urge. No need to let that egotist’s circuits get any more charged with self-importance than they already were. Besides, Megatron was simply feeling reasonable concern for a valued member of his troops. Nothing more. 

The way to Megatron’s personal offices would take him by the surveillance office. Or they would with a slight detour, at least. If he was already in the area, he may as well see what Starscream was so distracted by at the moment. Megatron pulled up an overlay of the orn’s schedule as he walked, checking who was on monitor duty. Misfire. Perfect. 

A few kliks later Megatron had the jet stumbling backwards out of the control room, stammering apologies for everything from that time he’d accidentally shot Frenzy instead of Swerve to being on-duty at all. 

Megatron, having cleared the area of any witnesses, let his optics scan the screens in search of familiar silver and red wings.

Light flashed on metal—but it was only the Rainmakers, going towards the Seeker barracks. Megatron was about to continue scanning the other monitor banks when the tetrajets snapped to attention, saluting someone just offscreen. He glanced at the closest other camera, on which Skywarp, Thundercracker, and indeed Starscream were stood. 

Starscream was, predictably, strutting in front of his trine with all the verve and drama of a proton peacock. His wings followed his big gestures, fanning out behind him and angling up and down to illustrate whatever his points were. 

Megatron tuned in to the frequency of that particular camera until he could make out the audio for it, just in time to hear Starscream proclaim, “And that’s why you and your criminal excuses for paint jobs have to spend all your time on Cybertron, away from the real action!” 

Acid Storm laughed, a harsh, grating sound. Megatron could just make out the glimmer of his eponymous acid welling up along the energon veins in his servos. “Sure,  _ commander, _ whatever you say.” 

“How dare you disrespect me!” Starscream began, vocalizer beginning to pitch into his characteristic scream. 

It was only then that Megatron heard a low rumble coming through the feed, almost a purr. Thundercracker reached forward, laying a careful hand on Starscream’s back. He didn’t even say anything, but Megatron could see Starscream’s wings relax down from where they’d stiffened in anger. 

The seeker let a long sigh escape from his vents, audible even over the security cam’s simple mic. “You and your trine are to report for training drills at the first joor tomorrow.” He held up a servo, cutting off any complaints. “I don’t want to hear it! If you’ve got the time to make the trip from Cybertron to here, you’ve got the time to run drills. That’s an order.” 

Both trines stared at each other for a long moment, crimson optics burning with intensity. Something unspoken was happening here, something that Megatron didn’t have the background to understand. 

Ion Storm was the first to break, lights flickering around him as he looked away from Thundercracker. “Let’s just go, guys.” 

Acid Storm and Nova Storm’s engines thrummed for another klik before they, too, backed down. “We’ll be there,” Acid Storm grumbled, before begrudgingly following his trine into the air barracks. 

“Maybe we should all recharge in Starscream’s tonight?” Thundercracker suggested. “I’ve got the feeling the rest of the air force isn’t going to be particularly appreciative of our presence at the moment.” 

“Well, we should have had our own berth ages ago!” Starscream snapped, but still walked after Thundercracker and Skywarp as they began heading in the direction of his quarters. “It’s not right to split up a trine like that.” 

“I didn’t notice you complaining when Soundwave assigned you your own quarters when we all onlined for the first time after crashing,” Thundercracker pointed out. 

“Or when Megatron kept giving you private labs even when you blew them all up making stuff to kill him,” Skywarp chimed in. 

Starscream’s wings twitched. “I was… distracted. I’m… I could have done things differently.” 

Seeming to recognize that that was the closest to an apology they were going to get, Skywarp and Thundercracker dropped back to flank their trinemate. “It’s okay, Screamer,” Skywarp said, stroking the side of Starscream’s wing. “Earth has been rough on everybody, you know?” 

“Don’t call me that,” Starscream protested. The way he leaned into Skywarp’s touch took the edge off his words. 

Starscream let the other two seekers into his quarters—which unlike his labs, did not have security cameras installed. They disappeared from Megatron’s view, leaving him to remember about the post-mission briefing he was supposed to be running at this moment. 

It wasn’t like anyone except Soundwave ever showed up on time anyway. 

They could afford to wait another few kliks while he looked into a few logistics about the space onboard the Nemesis.

After his meeting, Megatron found himself in the Nemesis’ information storage facilities. He inspected a datapad that contained several maps and diagrams of the ship, of both its former glory as the jewel of the Decepticon space fleet and current state of… light disrepair. 

There were few berths designed for multiple mechs on a warship like this one. 

Most of the options for recharging were small, sparse berths or larger, more public recharge areas such as the air barracks. Of course, Megatron could always have the Constructicons refit one of the rooms that used to store weapons into something that would work. 

Hypothetically. 

It wasn’t like this was a problem he was actually considering doing something about. 

Starscream had his own berth, and there was plenty of room for his trine with the rest of the air force. They didn’t need a recharge slab large enough for three mechs. 

Besides, Starscream was probably awful to share a berth with. He’d no doubt talk in his sleep, grand speeches about how he would rule the Decepticons someday blending into menial complaints. And the wings on one seeker would take up far too much space, let alone three. 

That wasn’t even mentioning the trust it would take, to recharge so close to someone who could so easily kill you (and had expressed considerable interest in doing so at many points). 

Any rest would be highly implausible under those conditions. Megatron couldn’t imagine how Skywarp and Thundercracker got through it. 

Against his will, the image of Thundercracker gently massaging polish along the sensitive edges of Starscream’s wings sprang to Megatron’s mind. And the way Starscream had draped himself over Skywarp… Their affection had seemed so genuine. Any one of them could have irreparably damaged the others from their positions, but it had looked like the idea had never entered any of their processors. 

Megatron stared at the datapad in his hands. 

Somehow, during his musing, he had sketched out the beginnings of a plan to refit one of the former torpedo storage bays into a berth fit for three seekers. 

This was not a good sign. 


	2. bitcanaries and coal mines

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Megatron continues lying to himself about his emotions, Starscream is confused by Megatron's emotions and irritated by the fact that he's confused. So, you know, pretty normal.

Megatron was not expecting to find Starscream in the remnants of one of the Nemesis’s smaller observation decks, joors before most of the ship would come online. The main windows in this one remained intact, even though the rest of it had been stripped for resources long ago. 

The warlord himself had been wandering the ship in lieu of attempting to recharge, inspecting the various unused rooms for reasons that had nothing to do with the half-finished berth design he’d tucked into his subspace.

He stopped in the doorway to the deck, watching as the seeker pressed his servos to the glass. Strange organic beings swam past the ship, seemingly indifferent to the alien forces that could kill them in a spark-beat. A few of them glowed, ever so slightly. Starscream traced the path of one of the fish with a claw tip, till it passed beyond his reach and vanished into the depths of the sea. 

Starscream’s talons glimmered red and silver in the faint light of his optics and the bioluminescence of the sea creatures. He must have turned the regular lighting for this room off. Wanting to better view the odd behavior of the aquatic life seemed out of character for him, but Megatron couldn’t think of a better reason. 

Of course, it was also possible they simply didn’t have the energon to fuel this area of the ship anymore. 

This half-fuelled, scavenging lifestyle was not the one Megatron had planned for his followers, not the one he’d written about in rhetoric and poetry alike. He still believed they were on the right path, or at least the  _ only _ path. No revolution ever happened comfortably. 

Megatron was not entirely bereft of a spark, though. He knew that these billions of cycles of war all coming down to a guerilla fight between waning forces on a backwater planet was not what the Decepticons had signed up for.

And yet they stayed, whether through fear of him, or rage at the Autobots, or that most dangerous emotion of all—hope, for a future scarcely imagined. 

Across the room, Starscream’s wings fluttered and he sighed, warm vents fogging the glass in front of him. 

Feeling as though he was intruding was not something to which Megatron was accustomed. Particularly when intrusions involved Starscream, who was far more likely to put himself in Megatron’s path than vice versa. 

It was probably just that Starscream was so rarely this still or quiet, and to see him as such was disconcerting. Megatron should leave him be to work through whatever knots in his processor had him leaving his trinemates to recharge without him. 

Although there was a definite chance that what Starscream was so pensively considering was another half-cocked scheme to overthrow Megatron, and in that case, it would be irresponsible of Megatron to leave without checking in. 

He tapped on the doorframe beside him. “Starscream.” 

The seeker’s wings shot up as his hydraulics tensed, and he spun around to catch Megatron with a fierce glare. “Megatron!” 

“Thinking up new ways to kill me?” 

Starscream snorted, casual arrogance fixed on his face even as his frame remained taut and ready to take flight. When had he become so nervous to be around Megatron? “Only you could be so self-centered, my lord.” 

“Then what brings such a powerful and busy mech as yourself to this corner of our ship?” Megatron pressed. 

Starscream’s optics blinked on and off and his wings flicked. “I could ask you the same question,” he countered. 

It would have been easy to rise to Starscream’s bait, to banter back and forth and in the end say nothing at all. They’d been doing it for millions of cycles, after all. And perhaps that was their issue. Old strategies, long out-of-date, would do nothing for the new place they were in. This planet, with its raw energy and improbable organic life, was unlike Cybertron in so many ways. It stood to reason something had to change, one way or another. 

After a long klik of silence, Megatron shrugged. “I couldn’t stay in recharge,” he admitted. The rumble of his vocals seemed oddly loud in the confined deck, and Starscream jumped a little at the sound. 

He eyed Megatron, still wary. “And you just happened to find yourself in this disused observation deck.” 

“As did you,” Megatron pointed out. “You haven’t answered me, either.”

Starscream huffed. He turned away, face-plates in profile against the dark water behind him. “I don’t have to justify my downtime to you.” 

“This reticence is unlike you,” Megatron prodded. He took a step into the deck, and then another, till he was under the curve of the viewing window and seemingly engulfed by the expanse of ocean that lay just beyond it. 

Starscream still didn’t look back at Megatron. The seeker stared into the deep water, immobile but far from tranquil. There was tension in every measure of his wiring, holding him frozen as a processor in a software crash. He said something, too quiet for Megatron to make out. 

Megatron stepped closer to Starscream again, and everything snapped in an instant. The seeker whirled on him, jabbing at his chest with a snarl.

“I don’t know what you want from me!” Starscream was half off the ground, wings flared till he seemed nearly twice his size. “Everything is just so—urgh!” His engine screamed his frustrations, that peculiar whine Megatron had only ever heard from jets. “You can’t—I’ve tried to kill you so many times! You  _ hate _ me, why do you keep—” 

“Starscream!” Megatron shouted, cutting off his second’s rant. He grabbed Starscream’s wrist without thinking, for once unsure of his own plan. “I don’t—” The grinding of his actuators was audible over his vocals, even as he tried to vent cool air into overheating machinery. “We have a complicated history, yes.”

The moment Megatron hesitated, Starscream hissed and wrenched his claws free, gouging Megatron’s palm and the delicate mechanisms of his fingers. “Figure it out, then! Because as I recall, most of those  _ complications _ involved us trying to kill each other, and these days I have better things to do than cater to your death wish.” He transformed and peeled off down the corridors far faster than Megatron could hope to follow. 

Megatron was left in the empty observation deck, nothing but the acrid scent of jet fuel and the gently bioluminescing organics to keep him company. He heaved out a sigh, hot enough to send wisps of steam curling from his exhausts. 

“Scrap.” 

* * *

Starscream was definitely avoiding Megatron. 

As Soundwave had predicted, productivity rates had gone up in the past deca-orn or so. For once, they were bringing in enough energon to keep everyone on full rations. There were fewer fights—or least, fewer fights that were enough of a disturbance to get Megatron’s attention—and the general morale onboard seemed… less dour. 

Megatron had even caught Dirge tunelessly humming some insipid song while he refueled early one morning. 

It had been  _ cheery.  _

And through it all, Starscream had been no more than a flicker in Megatron’s periphery. If he entered a room, Starscream had important business on the other side of said room or an appointment elsewhere in the ship. If he assigned security monitoring duties to his second, Starscream would perform them as requested. Unless, some subtle observations by Ravage confirmed, Megatron came anywhere near the communications room. 

Every time, at least one seeker would show up in his way. They were armed with some menial complaint that never failed to take long enough to resolve or dismiss for Starscream to have vacated the comms room in favor of one of his trinemates before Megatron could get there. 

Megatron shouldn’t have minded. 

Starscream was performing his duties more efficiently than he had since perhaps the beginning of the war, and the difference was noticeable. The fights between the two of them had been a factor in several of their ignominious defeats and the cause of more damaged equipment than Megatron would like to admit. 

This was a positive change. 

The wise thing to do would be to leave Starscream, Skywarp, and Thundercracker alone. They were obviously happy together. Megatron’s interference could destabilize their trine again. 

And Megatron was not stupid. He knew when it was wise to retreat, reformulate your plans and save the battle for another day. He was the Lord of the Decepticons! 

“I’m the Lord of the Decepticons!” Megatron said, to no one in particular. He took another swig of engex and leaned back in his chair. “Starscream should be proud to have a complex history with a mech such as I!” The metal ceiling of his office was marred with striations and rust. 

Megatron wasn’t sure there was a part of the ship that wasn’t similarly marked, at this point. His warship was rusting to pieces around him, the last vestige of the once-great Decepticon fleet now a hulking, out-dated wreck.

A future where he went the way of the Nemesis sat as an ever-present warning in his processor.

“I respect my soldiers.” 

He grimaced. “Well, as much as they deserve.” Megatron let his optics turn off, replacing his glitching view of the office with cool, steady darkness. “I’ve only killed the ones who really deserved it. I’ve—Starscream doesn’t deserve it. Most of the time. He’s—he’s infuriating. I could never hate him.” 

Engex burned on his taste receptors, the glossal cells generating a continuous alert that this fuel was toxic and should not be consumed. Megatron swallowed it anyway, letting the liquor set his systems alight with intoxication. 

“What  _ don’t _ I want from you, Starscream,” he muttered. His chair wobbled beneath him and Megatron grasped at the edges of his desk to keep balance, slopping the home-brewed engex onto himself and the desk. It congealed in shimmering pools, almost meeting the edge of the stack of datapads he’d came in here to work on breems ago. He grabbed the one on top—the one that held what were by now mostly finished berth plans—and set it carefully on another shelf.

He shoved the rest of the pads to the other side of his worktop and ignored the puddles of engex. This desk had seen worse, after all. A particularly memorable spat with Starscream sprang to mind, one that had left both of them bloodied with their own energon, but grinning and satisfied. Megatron missed sparring sessions like that more than he’d like to admit. 

What had Megatron said to Starscream, after that spat? 

He’d thanked him. Called him… “Dear Starscream,” Megatron said aloud. He could barely hear himself over the rush of his own fans. 

“Holy  _ shit,” _ someone whispered from his doorway, and Megatron was out of his chair and aiming his fusion cannon in kliks. His optics didn’t want to stay online, and his vision kept flickering into technicolor static. 

“Who goes there!” he barked, stumbling over his desk and almost slipping on the spilled engex as he made his way to the door. At some point it had been cracked open, and Megatron hadn’t noticed. He just caught a glimpse of the tip of a wing and a hint of citrus, but when he burst into the hallway outside his quarters, the eavesdropper was nowhere to be seen. 

Fortunately for Megatron, the list of winged Decepticons that used human swears and left behind that particular scent was extremely short. In fact, there was only one name on it. 

* * *

Starscream was being careful to avoid Megatron, but his trinemates did not seem to share the same wariness. Whether their reasons were fearlessness or stupidity or simply a lack of foresight, Megatron was grateful for the opportunity they granted him. 

He showed up at the communications center when he knew Thundercracker had the monitoring shift. While it had been Skywarp snooping on Megatron, confronting him would have an extremely predictable outcome: Skywarp would panic and make use of the power for which he was named, and Megatron would have no further insights into any of the three seekers. 

It helped that Thundercracker was also the likeliest of the three to actually show up for his shifts. Sure enough, when Megatron entered the blue and red seeker was standing in front of the bay of monitors. 

Thundercracker turned, a smile fritzing at the edge of his optics. “Warp, you  _ know _ you gotta wait till—” he stiffened. “Oh, uh—hello, Lord Megatron.” 

“Thundercracker,” Megatron greeted. He remained near the entrance, ostensibly giving the seeker space. If that space meant Megatron also stood in the way of the room’s only exit, so be it. He was going to have a full conversation with one of the command trine if he had to handcuff them to a desk to do so. 

“Is there anything I can help you with?” Thundercracker was holding himself carefully, fingers clasped together and wings held still at a neutral mid-level. 

When Megatron let the silence drag on for a moment longer than it needed to, Thundercracker’s wings twitched sharply before he could steady them again. 

So the seeker  _ was _ nervous. 

It was tempting to make him wait even longer—perhaps he’d spill the information Megatron was looking for all on his own. Then again, the longer Megatron dragged this out, the more likely it was that one of Thundercracker’s trinemates would show up to ‘rescue’ him. Better to get right to the point. 

“You know Skywarp was spying on me,” Megatron stated, blunt as the butt of a gun. 

Thundercracker did not flinch or jump at the accusation, but the groan of metal under stress as he kept himself immobile was equally telling. “I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean.” 

“Leave the lying to Starscream, Thundercracker. He’s better at it.” Megatron folded his arms across his torso, knowing the gesture would emphasize his fusion cannon. “Why was Skywarp eavesdropping on me?” 

At the mention of his trine leader, Thundercracker bristled. He cycled his vents slowly, letting his plating settle down as cool air refreshed the heated metal. “With respect,  _ sir, _ Skywarp does a lot of things. I’m not his keeper.” 

Megatron hadn’t heard a less respectful ‘sir’ since the last time Starscream had said it to him. He would have to tread carefully here. “I simply wanted to ensure he didn’t have any important data to share with me, seeing as I was… indisposed when he arrived at my quarters.” 

Thundercracker snorted—so Skywarp had shared the state in which he’d found Megatron with his trine. “I’m sure if Skywarp had anything he needed you to know, he would have found you later. Now if you don’t mind, I’m on duty right now.” 

“Of course,” Megatron agreed. He hesitated before leaving, and Thundercracker seemed unwilling to turn his back to his commander. Megatron had completed his plans at last, and the datapad containing them was burning a hole in his subspace. 

Now didn’t feel like the right time, though. But he had to do something. 

“Tell Starscream I could never hate him,” Megatron said. He met Thundercracker’s optics, their cherry red gleam as stark and lovely as either of his trinemates. “I don’t know how much Skywarp heard last night or what he shared, but Starscream should know that much.” 

Thundercracker tipped his head to one side, the tight seams of his facial plating relaxing the smallest amount. “… I will. Thank you, Lord Megatron.”

“Just Megatron,” Megatron corrected. 

With a smug smile all too similar to the one often adorning Starscream’s face, Thundercracker nodded. “Of course, Just Megatron.” 

Megatron had to suppress an actual smile at the joke—it wouldn’t do to let the seeker realize Megatron had enjoyed a joke at his own expense. Primus knew what Skywarp would do with that fact when Thundercracker inevitably shared it. But he filed away the knowledge of Thundercracker’s sense of humor for later, and simply inclined his head in acknowledgement before leaving. 

As he walked down the hallways of the Nemesis, he couldn’t stop himself from smirking, just a little. He’d enjoyed that conversation more than he’d anticipated. Perhaps he should reach out to Starscream’s trinemates more in the future. 

* * *

At the end of another long orn, Megatron found himself in the most promising unused room on the Nemesis. It was slightly separated from the other barracks, but not in one of the functionally abandoned areas where the leaks and lighting failures were embarrassingly common. Far enough from common areas that there was little risk one of Starscream’s experiments would blow anything vital up, but not so far that the seekers would feel disconnected from the rest of the force. 

He had put a completely normal amount of processing power into this. 

The Constructicons flanked him, staring blankly at the empty storage bay. 

“You want us to… reformat this into a berth? For three mechs?” Scrapper asked, as though it wasn’t extremely obvious. 

“The instructions are on this datapad,” Megatron said, ignoring the idiotic questions. “Follow them to the letter.” 

He stormed out of the room without giving his subordinates a chance to react or query further. It would be easier to rely on his intimidating status than it would be to explain himself. 

Now to figure out a way to present the berth to Starscream and his trine without being… obvious. Megatron hadn’t quite locked down what there was to be obvious about—or at least, he hadn’t acknowledged it in his top-level code yet. 

He didn’t need to. It was irrelevant. He was going to present the berth to the command trine, they were going to accept it, and things were—not going to go back to normal, per se. Megatron didn’t want the stressed, shrieking mess that Starscream had been to become his permanent state. But perhaps a semblance of normal, one in which they could have a balance of professional interactions and… spirited discussions. 

Yes, some tactical communication and professional meetings was all Megatron needed from Starscream and his trine, surely. Besides, wanting anything else would be foolhardy. The three of them had each other to turn to, they didn’t need Megatron. And Megatron had an army to attend to; he had a war to win! 

He had no time for mooning after a few pretty pairs of wings. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know if you enjoyed it! The next chapter has... not a guaranteed posting date, because it is not yet completed, oops. Hopefully no more than a week or so?

**Author's Note:**

> title from richard siken's You Are Jeff because i'm incorrigible. let me know if you liked it!! next chapter is already written so should be up next friday, approx a week from now!


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